Movie review: Joanna Kulig brings the heat in ‘Cold War’

Al Alexander More Content Now

Monday

Jan 14, 2019 at 1:16 PMJan 14, 2019 at 1:16 PM

Lady Gaga and Olivia Colman are drawing the Oscar buzz, but truth be told, the year’s best performance resides with the incomparable Joanna Kulig, the gorgeous Polish siren who sings, vamps and dances her way through Paweł Pawlikowski’s devastating “Cold War.” Is there anything she can’t do? If there is, you won’t see it here, as Kulig personifies beguilement via a performance seductively melding smoldering sexuality with the fragility of a young woman precariously nursing a mortally wounded soul.

Just shy of 20, her Zula is foremost a survivor bearing the emotional scars of a sexually abusive father and an even more frightening existence under Hitler’s scorched-earth rule. When we first meet her in 1949, she’s just another forlorn face among dozens of destitute aspirants hoping against hope to survive an “American Idol”-like competition to be selected as a member of a traveling troupe of teen folk artists. It’s an opportunity among a precious few, as Poland turbulently transitions from Nazism to an even more repressive existence under the thumb of Joseph Stalin. So Zula is well prepared to exploit all her feminine wiles to win favor with the producers.

And Tomasz Kot’s Wiktor is just the dupe she’s been looking for. He’s the show’s director and resident pianist. He has everything she looks for in a man: Gullibility. He’s smitten from the start, as is she with him; but not enough to ignore a request by the group’s Kremlin liaison, Kaczmarek (Borys Szyc), to report back all Wiktor says and does. Granted, not your typical romance, but darned if Kot and Kulig don’t make it sufficiently steamy.

Both are ideally cast by Pawlikowski, who joins with director of photography Lukasz Zal to render them luminous in shimmering black and white. And by framing them in an almost square 1.33:1 aspect, “Cold War” has you convinced it is a product of its time, as if it was recently unmoored from a vault where it sat unseen for decades, a la “The Artist.” But there’s nothing quaint about the tale at hand, which hauntingly captures the strains authoritarian rule can place on a relationship, particularly after one of them defects to the West.

With his writing partners, Janusz Glowacki and Piotr Borkowski, Pawlikowski (the Oscar-winning “Ida”) vividly depicts the many heartbreaks and frustrations born of love under the iron grip of the Iron Curtain. The story chronicles the couple’s joys and miseries over a 15-year span that takes them from the spartan streets of Warsaw to the glitz and glitter of Paris, where jazz and free expression rule. One of them embraces a life untethered, while the other shudders in fear of it. It’s quite moving. It’s also presents a hotbed of self-destruction and martyrdom. As Eric Clapton plaintively asked on his similarly themed “Layla” album, “Why does love have to be so sad?”

Pawlikowski has probably asked himself the same question - repeatedly. And with good reason, given his movie is based on the tumultuous relationship between his parents, who also happen to be named Zula and Wiktor. Perhaps that’s why “Cold War” feels so achingly real. It’s not a happy love story, but it’s one that is no less successful at tugging at your emotions. Some may be deterred by the director’s elliptical style, which often requires you to fill in the blanks, but I found it enthralling, a filmmaking marvel that yields the perfect blend of artistry and passion.

And, of course, there’s Kulig. She is exquisite in a performance tapping the highest highs and lowest lows, reaching her pinnacle late in the movie when Zula sheds her chains to let loose with a mesmerizingly erotic dance set to Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.” Finally, Zula is Zula, free to express herself the way she wants without seeking the approval of any man or dictator. It’s incredibly cathartic - and just one of the many reasons Kulig deserves lofty recognition. Sadly, like Zula, she will be deprived of what she deserves, but in our minds, her brilliance is not just Oscar-worthy, it’s indelible.

Al Alexander may be reached at alexandercritica@aol.com.

“Cold War”Cast includes Joanna Kulig and Tomasz Kot. In Polish with English subtitles. (R for some sexual content, nudity and language.) Grade: A

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